In their paper, Zhicheng Liu and Jeffrey Heer explore “The Effects of Interactive Latency on Exploratory Visual Analysis” – that is, how user behavior changes with system response time. As the authors point out, while it seems intuitively ideal to minimize latency, effects vary by domain.
In strategy games, “latency as high as several seconds does not significantly affect user performance,” most likely because tasks which “take place at a larger time scale,” such as “understanding game situation and conceiving strategy” play a more important role in affecting the outcome of a game. In a puzzle game, imposed latency caused players to solve the puzzle in fewer moves – spending more time mentally planning their moves.
These examples illustrate perhaps the most interesting aspect of latency: while it’s often true that time delays will make users bored or frustrated, that is not the only dimension of effect. Latency can alter the way a user thinks about a problem; consciously or unconsciously shifting strategies to whatever seems more time effective.
Liu and Heer focus on latency effecting “knowledge discovery with visualizations,” a largely unexplored area. One thing which makes this domain unique is that “unlike problem-solving tasks or most computer games, exploratory visual analysis is open-ended and does not have a clear goal state.”
The authors design an experimental setup in which participants are asked to explore two different datasets and “report anything they found interesting, including salient patterns in the visualizations, their interpretations, and any hypotheses based on those patterns.” Each participant experienced an additional 500ms latency in one of the datasets. They recorded participant mouse clicks, as well as 9 additional “application events,” such as zoom and color slider, which capture user interaction with the visualization.
The authors also used a “think aloud protocol” to capture participant findings. As the name implies, a think aloud methodology asks users to continually describe what they are thinking as they work. A helpful summary of the benefits and downsides of this methodology can be found here.
Liu and Heer find that latency does have significant effects: latency decreased user activity and coverage of the dataset, while also “reducing rates of observation, generalization and hypothesis.” Additionally, users who experienced the latency earlier in the study had “reduced rates of observation and generalization during subsequent analysis sessions in which full system performance was restored.”
This second finding lines up with earlier research which found that a delay of 300ms in web searches reduced the number of searches a user would perform – a reduction which would persist for days after latency was restored to previous levels.
Ultimately, the authors recommend “taking a user-centric approach to system optimization” rather than “uniformly focusing on reducing latency” for each individual visual operation.
We should strive for social justice. But what is it?
I fear that the phrase can be used to mean: “All the things that we’d like to see in a society.” In that case, anyone who doesn’t commit to pursue “social justice” (by that name) must be against at least some of these good things; and anyone who doesn’t agree with us about what’s good must be against social justice. Then it’s us versus them: the people who care about social justice against those who don’t. The result can be a warm feeling of righteousness and solidarity, perhaps admixed with some regret that our actions don’t live up to our words.
But ask yourself: What are the things you’d like to see in a society? They are likely to be heterogeneous. For instance, equality comes in many forms, all of which may be attractive even though some are in tension (equality of opportunity, of outcomes, of status, of rights; equality for members of a community, for all adults, for all human beings, etc.). And equality won’t suffice, because no one wants to see a society in which everyone is equally miserable and oppressed. So even strong egalitarians also want some combination of liberty, peace, solidarity or community, human flourishing, excellence, and/or sustainability, for all those equal people. But liberty and equality-of-outcomes trade off, as do liberty and solidarity. In some cases, the means to achieve valuable ends are bad or they undermine the ends. For instance, I’d like to see everyone be able to work, but I worry that any policy that guaranteed employment would also undermine the value and dignity of the labor.
Once you spell out what you value with due attention to priorities, means, costs, and tradeoffs, it’s likely that your own view will be unique, or at least unusual. That chips away at the us-versus-them framework. You may begin to see other people’s views as attractive even as you continue to endorse your own. There are certainly selfish and foolish people in the world, but now it begins to seem that many of our fellow citizens also favor “social justice.” They just disagree about what it is, because that’s a profoundly hard question.
See also: we are for social justice, but what is it?; on the moral peril of cliché and what to do about it; on the moral dangers of cliché; and talking about “social justice” in education.
The 20-page report, Ships Passing in the Night (2014), was written by David Mathews and supported by the Cousins Research Group of the Kettering Foundation. In the article, Mathews talks about the two major movements in civic engagement; one in higher education and the other found growing among communities able to work together. He uses the analogy of the wetlands, like how life thrives in the wetlands, it is in communities that can come together, where democracy thrives. Because it is these opportunities for people to discuss details and issues of their lives, that people will become more engaged in the issues that matter to them.
Mathews explores the question, “Why, though, are these two civic movements in danger of passing like the proverbial ships in the night? More important, how might these efforts become mutually supportive?”
Below is an excerpt of the report and it can be found in full at the bottom of this page or on Kettering Foundation’s site here.
From the guide…
The Shaffers of academe are one of the forces driving a civic engagement movement on campuses across the country. Not so long ago, the civic education of college students was of little concern. Now, thanks to educators like Shaffer, that indifference is giving way. Leadership programs are common, and students are taught civic skills, including civil dialogue. There are also more opportunities to be of service these days, which is socially beneficial as well as personally rewarding. These opportunities are enriched by students’ exposure to the political problems behind the needs that volunteers try to meet. University partnerships with nearby communities offer technical assistance, professional advice, and access to institutional resources. Faculty, who were once “sages on the stage,” have learned to be more effective in communities by being “guides on the side.” All in all, there is much to admire in the civic engagement movement on campuses.
Another civic engagement movement is occurring off campus. At Kettering, we have seen it clearly in communities on the Gulf Coast that are recovering from Hurricane Katrina…
People wanted to restore their community—both its buildings and way of life—and felt that they had to come together as a community to do that. The community was both their objective and the means of reaching that objective. This has been the goal for many of the other civic engagement movements in communities that are trying to cope with natural disasters, economic change, and other problems that threaten everyone’s well-being.
Interestingly, a year or so after Katrina, a group of scholars studying communities that survived disasters validated the instincts of Don, Mary, and their neighbors. These communities were resilient because they had developed the capacity to come together. And the resilience proved more important than individual protective measures like well-stocked pantries.
People with a democratic bent like Don, Mary, and their neighbors don’t want to be informed, organized, or assisted as much as they want to be in charge of their lives. And they sense that this means they need a greater capacity to act together despite their differences. That is why they say they want to come together as communities to maintain their communities. Unfortunately, they often have difficulty finding institutions that understand their agenda.
Nongovernmental organizations, according to a recent Kettering and Harwood study, are often more interested in demonstrating the impact of their programs than in facilitating self-determination and self-rule. Even citizens may be uncertain of what they can do by themselves and want to put the responsibility on schools, police departments, or other government agencies…
The Wetlands of Democracy
We don’t have a name for what we are seeing, but the more we see, the more we have come to believe that we are looking at something more than civil society at work, more than revitalized public life, and more than grassroots initiatives. We don’t think we are seeing an alternative political system like direct democracy; rather, we are looking at the roots of self-rule. Democratic politics seems to operate at two levels. The most obvious is the institutional level, which includes elections, lawmaking, and the delivery of services. The other level is underneath these superstructures, and what happens there is much like what happens in the wetlands of a natural ecosystem.
We have been experimenting with a wetlands analogy to describe what supports and sustains institutional politics. Wetlands were once overlooked and unappreciated but were later recognized as the nurseries for marine life. For example, the swamps along the Gulf Coast were filled in by developers, and the barrier islands were destroyed when boat channels were dug through them. The consequences were disastrous. Sea life that bred in the swamps died off, and coastal cities were exposed to the full fury of hurricanes when the barrier islands eroded. The wetlands of politics play roles similar to swamps and barrier islands. They include informal gatherings, ad hoc associations, and the seemingly innocuous banter that goes on when people mull over the meaning of their everyday experiences. These appear inconsequential when compared with what happens in elections, legislative bodies, and courts. Yet mulling over the meaning of everyday experiences in grocery stores and coffee shops can be the wellspring of public decision making. Connections made in these informal gatherings become the basis for political networks, and ad hoc associations evolve into civic organizations.
In the political wetlands, as in institutional politics, problems are given names, issues are framed for discussion, decisions are made, resources are identified and utilized, actions are organized, and results are evaluated. In politics at both levels, action is taken or not; power is generated or lost; change occurs or is blocked. We aren’t watching perfect democracy in the political wetlands because there isn’t such a thing. But we are seeing ways of acting, of generating power, and of creating change that are unlike what occurs in institutional politics.
Why the Disconnect?
It would seem that two civic engagement movements, occurring at the same time and often in the same locations, would be closely allied—perhaps mutually reinforcing. That doesn’t seem to be happening very often. Research reported by Sean Creighton in the 2008 issue of the Higher Education Exchange suggests the connection is quite limited. Even though academic institutions have considerable expertise and a genuine interest in being helpful, they don’t necessarily know how to relate to the self-organizing impulses of Don, Mary, and their neighbors…
This is an excerpt of the report, download the full guide at the bottom of this page to learn more.
About Kettering Foundation
The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.
Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn
Resource Link: ships_passing_in_the_night
We at NCDD are thrilled to announce that we recently published the official schedule and list of conference sessions and workshops for the 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation this Oct. 14-16 in Boston!
NCDD 2016 promises to be the most exciting NCDD conference to date! As always, we’ve planned the conference weekend to be full of activity, learning, and connecting. It includes rich pre-conference offerings, our famously engaging plenary sessions, experiential field trips, the D&D Showcase, and a new Open Space – there is going to be something for everyone! Be sure to have a look at the full NCDD 2016 conference schedule at www.ncdd.org/ncdd2016/schedule.
And of course, it wouldn’t be an NCDD conference without a smorgasbord of incredible workshops and sessions hosted by the brightest leaders and innovators in our field. NCDD 2016 will feature six concurrent workshop block with over 50 super diverse sessions that span the breadth and depth of the work being done by those in our field who are Bridging Our Divides, while also featuring some of the most exciting new initiatives and successful case studies in D&D. We encourage you to check out the full list of sessions and workshops at www.ncdd.org/ncdd2016/workshops.
If you’ve been waiting to register for NCDD 2016, wait no longer! This schedule and list of conference sessions is just more proof that this year’s gathering will be one of the most engaging, catalytic NCDD events yet, and you won’t want to miss out!
The conference is less than a month away now, and we can’t wait to be with 400 of the most engaged and innovative leaders in this work! We look forward to seeing you in October!
Pic by Jim Kaskade (flickr creative commons)
Matthew Salganik, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, has recently put his forthcoming book on social research and big data online for an open review. Matthew is the author of many of my favorite academic works, including this experiment in which he and Duncan Watts test social influence by artificially inverting the popularity of songs in an online music market. He is also the brains behind All Our Ideas, an amazing tool that I have used in much of the work that I have been doing, including “The Governor Asks” in Brazil.
As in the words of Matthew, this is a book “for social scientists that want to do more data science, and it is for data scientists that want to do more social science.” Even though I have not read the entire book, one of the things that has already impressed me is the simplicity with which Matthew explains complex topics, such as human computation, distributed data collection and digital experiments. For each topic, he highlights opportunities and provides experienced advice for those working with big data and social sciences. His stance on social research in the digital age is brilliant and refreshing, and is a wake-up call for lots of people working in that domain. Below is an excerpt from his preface:
From data scientists, I’ve seen two common misunderstandings. The first is thinking that more data automatically solves problems. But, for social research that has not been my experience. In fact, for social research new types of data, as opposed to more of the same data, seems to be most helpful. The second misunderstanding that I’ve seen from data scientists is thinking that social science is just a bunch of fancy-talk wrapped around common sense. Of course, as a social scientist—more specifically as a sociologist—I don’t agree with that; I think that social science has a lot of to offer. Smart people have been working hard to understand human behavior for a long time, and it seems unwise to ignore the wisdom that has accumulated from this effort. My hope is that this book will offer you some of that wisdom in a way that is easy to understand.
From social scientists, I’ve also seen two common misunderstandings. First, I’ve seen some people write-off the entire idea of social research using the tools of the digital age based on a few bad papers. If you are reading this book, you have probably already read a bunch of papers that uses social media data in ways that are banal or wrong (or both). I have too. However, it would be a serious mistake to conclude from these examples that all digital age social research is bad. In fact, you’ve probably also read a bunch of papers that use survey data in ways that are banal or wrong, but you don’t write-off all research using surveys. That’s because you know that there is great research done with survey data, and in this book, I’m going to show you that there is also great research done with the tools of the digital age.
The second common misunderstanding that I’ve seen from social scientists is to confuse the present with the future. When assessing social research in the digital age—the research that I’m going to describe in this book—it is important to ask two distinction questions:
How well does this style of research work now?
How well will this style of research work in the future as the data landscape changes and as researchers devote more attention to these problems?
I have only gone through parts of the book (and yes, I did go beyond the preface). But from what I can see, it is a must read for those who are interested in digital technologies and the new frontiers of social research. And while reading it, why not respond to Matthew’s generous act by providing some comments? You can access the book here.
Gaussian, Poisson, and other bell-shaped distributions are some times called “democratic.” This colloquial term is intended to indicate an important feature: an average value is a typical value.
Compare this to heavy-tailed distributions which follow generally the so-called 80/20 rule: 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients, 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. Indeed, this principle was originally illustrated by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto when he demonstrated that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.
In these distributions, an average value is not typical: the average household income doesn’t mean much when a small group of people are vastly more wealthy than the rest. This skew can be shown mathematically: in a bell curve, the variance – which measures the spread of a distribution – is well defined, while it diverges for a heavy-tailed distribution.
Yet while heavy-tailed distributions are clearly not democratic, I’m still struck by the use of the term for normal distributions. I’m not sure I’d call those distributions democratic either.
I’m particularly intrigued by the use of the word “democratic” to nod to the idea of things being the same. Indeed, such bell-shaped distributions are known primarily for being statistically homogeneous.
That’s starting to border on some Harrison Bergeron imagery, with a Handicapper General tasked with making sure that no outliers are too intelligent or too pretty.
That’s not democratic at all. Not really.
This, of course, leads me to the question: what would a “democratic” distribution really look like?
I don’t have a good answer for that, but this does raise an broader point about democracy: most real-world systems are heavy-tailed. Properties like hight and weight follow normal distributions, but power, money, and fame are heavy-tailed.
So the real question isn’t what a democratic distribution looks like; it is how do we design a democratic system in a complex system that is inherently undemocratic?
When faced with the massive crises of our time, the most logical response is paralysis. What can an individual possibly do about something so massive and complex?
But what if people could manage to imagine changes that matter within their own lives, and then to grow and federate them? My colleague Anna Grear, a law professor at Cardiff University, and I wanted to focus on some of the positive, practical steps that anyone can take in dealing with the terrible challenges of our time.
One result is a six-minute video that we are releasing today. The video is based on a series of interviews with participants in a June workshop called “Operationalising Green Governance.” Held at a lovely retreat center north of Paris, a handful of participants – international law professors, human rights advocates, activists – were interviewed on camera by Ibby Stockdale, Director of a British film production company, Five Foot Four. Ibby brilliantly distilled hours of interview footage and crafted a succinct, beautifully produced message.
The short film, “Re-imagine the Future,” is now posted online and can be watched here.
In six minutes, it’s difficult to cover too much ground – so in the closing frames of the film, we provide links to two dedicated webpages – Anna’s and mine -- to provide resources, organizations, essays, books, etc. for those interested in exploring the film’s themes more deeply.
We hope you like the film – and would welcome whatever pass-along visibility you can give it.